.TH BIOSDECODE 8 "February 2007" "dmidecode"
.SH NAME
biosdecode \- \s-1BIOS\s0 information decoder
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B biosdecode
.RB [ OPTIONS ]

.SH DESCRIPTION
.B biosdecode
parses the \s-1BIOS\s0 memory and prints information about all structures (or
entry points) it knows of. Currently known entry point types are:
.IP \(bu "\w'\(bu'u+1n"
\s-1SMBIOS\s0 (System Management \s-1BIOS\s0)
.br
Use
.B dmidecode
for a more detailed output.
.IP \(bu
\s-1DMI\s0 (Desktop Management Interface, a legacy version of \s-1SMBIOS\s0)
.br
Use
.B dmidecode
for a more detailed output.
.IP \(bu
\s-1SYSID\s0
.IP \(bu
\s-1PNP\s0 (Plug and Play)
.IP \(bu
\s-1ACPI\s0 (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface)
.IP \(bu
\s-1BIOS32\s0 (\s-1BIOS32\s0 Service Directory)
.IP \(bu
\s-1PIR\s0 (\s-1PCI\s0 \s-1IRQ\s0 Routing)
.IP \(bu
\s-132OS\s0 (\s-1BIOS32\s0 Extension, Compaq-specific)
.br
See
.B ownership
for a Compaq ownership tag retrieval tool.
.IP \(bu
\s-1SNY\s0 (Sony-specific, not decoded)
.IP \(bu
\s-1VPD\s0 (Vital Product Data, IBM-specific)
.br
Use
.B vpddecode
for a more detailed output.
.IP \(bu
\s-1FJKEYINF\s0 (Application Panel, Fujitsu-specific)

.PP
.B biosdecode
started its life as a part of
.B dmidecode
but as more entry point types were added, if was moved to a different
program.

.SH OPTIONS
.TP
.BR "-d" ", " "--dev-mem FILE"
Read memory from device \fBFILE\fR (default: \fB/dev/mem\fR)
.TP
.BR "-h" ", " "--help"
Display usage information and exit
.TP
.BR "-V" ", " "--version"
Display the version and exit

.SH FILES
.I /dev/mem
.SH BUGS
Most of the time,
.B biosdecode
prints too much information (you don't really care about addresses)
or not enough (because it doesn't follow pointers and has no lookup
tables).
.SH AUTHORS
Alan Cox, Jean Delvare
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR dmidecode (8),
.BR mem (4),
.BR ownership (8),
.BR vpddecode (8)
